Archive for January 13th, 2010

In his classic defamation segment, ‘Patriots & Pinheads’, Bill O’Reilly condemned the man who confronted former President George H.W. Bush at a Houston restaurant.

“On the pinhead front, President Bush is 85 years old. The other day he was in a Houston restaurant when a deranged person approached him.”

“The guy should have been arrested by the Secret Service,” O’Reilly stated after playing a You Tube clip of the incident. “However, we called them and they will not comment. We don’t know what happened to him. We hope the service will clarify the situation quickly. The guy may be a pinhead but he also deserves to be held accountable– can’t let that stuff go.”

It’s no surprise that O’Reilly is defending the former President, but at a bare minimum, free speech certainly should protect this man from arrest. He certainly has a right to criticize one of America’s most powerful dynasties, who have condemned millions to death through war, and much more.

Though the man did shout profanities, he clearly made no threats, was not violent and posed no danger to the former president.

In fact, the Secret Service did visit the man’s home the next day, but left shortly after refusing to speak while a camera was recording (i.e. on the record). Whatever their intentions were cannot be immediately known (see video below). He appeared today on the Alex Jones Show, using only his first name, Greg, to explain his perspective on the situation.

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note:“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment: United States Constitution

Earlier today House Representative Edolphus Towns subpoenaed documents related to the so-called “backdoor bailout” of AIG, including documents from Timothy Geithner, the former New York Fed Chief and current Treasury Secretary. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is looking for information on payments made to AIG counterparties, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Societe Generale. The subpoena “specifically requests all documents surrounding the decision to pay AIG’s counterparties 100 cents on the dollar,” according to AFP.

It looks like Towns and his committee may only get part of the story. They will have to wait until 2018 to get the rest.

In May, well before Geithner was on the hot seat, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most criminal aspect of the AIG bailout — the funneling of billions of dollars to the above mentioned culprits, particularly Goldman Sachs.

The SEC said the exhibit “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information” and is off limits to Congress and the American people. The 2018 expiration date will fall on the tenth anniversary of the Federal Reserve of New York’s decision to provide “emergency financing” to an entity set up to specifically acquire some $60 billion in collateralized debt obligations from 16 banks in the United States and Europe.

The SEC ruling is yet another indication the banksters have a lot to hide and will go to unusual lengths to prevent the American people from learning the sordid details of their criminal activities.

In March of 2009, the socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, demanded Federal Reserve mob boss Ben Bernanke reveal who received $2.2 trillion dollars in taxpayer money (or rather taxpayer debt obligation). Bernanke refused to answer. Bernanke said revealing who received the money would risk “stigmatizing banks and discouraging them from borrowing from the central bank.” Sanders abruptly cut Bernanke off. “Isn’t that too bad,” Sanders said. “They took the money but they don’t want to be public about the fact that they received it.”

In July of 2009, Congressman Alan Grayson asked Bernanke about which foreign banks were the recipients of Federal Reserve credit swaps. Asked which European financial institutions received the money, which was handed over by the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee, Bernanke responded, “I don’t know.” Bernanke said the Fed had a “long standing legal authority” to hand money to foreign banks under section 14 of the Federal Reserve Act, a claim contradicted by Bernanke’s own report, as Grayson soon highlighted.

“As we have previously reported, the destination of trillions in bailout funds remains hidden after the Fed refused to disclose where it had gone despite a lawsuit filed by Bloomberg,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote for Prison Planet on July 22.

Bloomberg filed a lawsuit under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs. On December 8, 2009, the Fed said it is permitted to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information.

As noted by Reuters, the AIG to SEC request to hide details of the massive and unprecedented bailout received scant attention in the corporate media when it was announced in May. “But it could spark controversy now following the release last week of 14-month-old emails that reveal that some at the New York Fed had discussions with AIG officials about how much information should be disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane III transaction.”

Maiden Lane III is a Federal Reserve scheme to facilitate the merger of the Bear Stearns Companies and JP Morgan Chase. The New York Fed also used Maiden Lane III to acquire assets of Bear Stearns.

In November, Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky said, “New York Fed didn’t have the backbone to stand up to Wall Street, didn’t understand its capacity to protect taxpayers, and didn’t appreciate that its responsibility was to taxpayers,” according to former prosecutor Eliot Spitzer. “Geithner and the Fed have proffered a series of spurious reasons for their willingness to pay AIG’s counterparties — the leading Wall Street banks — in full while demanding concessions from every other entity with whom the Treasury or the Fed dealt.”

In fact, the Federal Reserve, as a cartel for the international bankers, knew precisely what it was doing — it was paying off its buddies on Wall Street for their casino derivatives losses. The scam also provides an additional mechanism for crashing and burning the U.S. economy and ushering Americans into globalist serfdom.

Geithner and crew at the Treasury, at the Federal Reserve, and in the offices of Goldman Sachs and the other criminal bankster organizations need to be arrested immediately. Only through the process of discovery during prosecution will we learn the grim details of the largest financial crime in history and be able to punish the criminals responsible.

On November 27, 2009, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fifth Estate program aired a show entitled “9/11: The Unofficial Story,”1 for which I, along with a few other members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, was interviewed. In the most important part of my interview, I pointed out that, according to the FBI’s report on phone calls from the airliners provided in 2006 for the Moussaoui trial, Barbara Olson’s only call from Flight 77 was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds.” Although this Fifth Estate program showed only a brief portion of my discussion of alleged phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, its website subsequently made available a 22-minute video containing this discussion.2

Shortly thereafter, a portion of this video, under the title “David Ray Griffin on the 9/11 Cell Phone Calls: Exclusive CBC Interview,” was posted on You Tube,3 after which it was posted on 911 Blogger.4 This latter posting resulted in considerable discussion, during which some claims contradicting my position were made. In this essay, I respond to the most important of these claims, namely:

1. The FBI has not admitted that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners on 9/11 were impossible.

2. There is no evidence that some of the reported 9/11 phone calls were faked.

3. American Airlines’ Boeing 757s, and hence its Flight 77, had onboard phones.

4. The FBI’s report on phone calls from the 9/11 airliners did not undermine Ted Olson’s report about receiving phone calls from his wife.

The four sections of this essay will respond to these four claims in order.

1. The FBI on the Possibility of High-Altitude Cell Phone Calls in 2001

I have suggested that the FBI’s report to the Moussaoui trial in 2006 implied its acceptance of the argument, made by some members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners would have been impossible, or at least virtually so. One critic, however, said: “The FBI hasn’t admitted anything about the possibility of making cell phone calls at 30,000 feet.”5 It is true that the FBI has never explicitly stated that such calls are impossible, or at least too improbable to affirm. But its report for the Moussaoui trial, I have argued, implies an acceptance of this view.

My argument for this claim involves three points: (1) Immediately after 9/11, the FBI had described, or at least accepted the description of, about 15 of the reported calls from the airliners as cell phone calls. (2) In 2003, a prominent member of the 9/11 Truth Movement argued persuasively that, given the cell phone technology available in 2001, calls from high-altitude airliners would have been impossible. (3) The FBI report for the Moussaoui trial affirmed only two cell phone calls from the airliners, both of which were from United Flight 93 after it had descended to 5,000 feet. I will expand on each of these three points.

Reported Calls Originally Described as Cell Phone Calls

Approximately 15 of the reported phone calls from the four airliners were described at the time as cell phone calls. About 10 of those were from Flight 93. For example:

• A Washington Post story said: “[Passenger Jeremy] Glick’s cell phone call from Flight 93 and others like it provide the most dramatic accounts so far of events aboard the four hijacked aircraft during the terrifying hours of Tuesday morning, and they offer clues about how the hijackings occurred.”6

• A Newsweek story about United 93 said: “Elizabeth [Honor] Wainio, 27, was speaking to her stepmother in Maryland. Another passenger, she explains, had loaned her a cell phone and told her to call her family.”7

• According to the FBI’s interview of Fred Fiumano, a close friend of UA 93 passenger Marion Britton, she called to tell him about the hijacking and then gave him the number of the phone she was using. Since this was not the number of her own cell phone, Fiumano assumed that Britton, who was traveling with a colleague from work, “had borrowed a cell phone.”8

• Reporting that UA 93 flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw had called her husband from United 93, the Greensboro News & Record, besides speaking of their “cellular phone conversation,” also reported that she had told her husband that “many passengers were making cell phone calls.”9

• A story about Deena Burnett, who reported receiving three to five calls from her husband, Tom Burnett, said: “Deena Burnett clutched the phone. … She was at once terrified, yet strangely calmed by her husband’s steady voice over his cell phone.”10

Two calls from United Flight 175 were also originally described as cell phone calls:

• A BBC story said: “Businessman Peter Hanson, who was with his wife and baby on the United Airlines flight 175 that hit the World Trade Center, called his father in Connecticut. Despite being cut off twice, he managed to report how men armed with knives were stabbing flight attendants.”11 An Associated Press story said that “a minister confirmed the cell phone call to Lee Hanson.”12

• A Washington Post story said: “Brian Sweeney called his wife Julie: ‘Hi, Jules,’ Brian Sweeney was saying into his cell phone. ‘It’s Brian. We’ve been hijacked, and it doesn’t look too good.’”13

It was widely reported, likewise, that two people had made cell phone calls from American Flight 77. One of these was flight attendant Renee May, about whom a story’s headline read: “Flight Attendant Made Call on Cell Phone to Mom in Las Vegas.”14

The other reported cell-phone caller from Flight 77 was CNN commentator Barbara Olson, wife of Theodore “Ted” Olson, the US solicitor general. On the afternoon of 9/11, CNN put out a story stating that, according to Ted Olson, his wife had “called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77.”15 Olson, who reportedly told the FBI the same day that he did not know “if the calls were made from her cell phone or the telephone on the plane,”16 went back and forth between these two positions in his public statements.17 He even endorsed the onboard phone version in what seem to have been his two final public statements on the issue, made to the Federalist Society on November 16, 2001, and to London’s Daily Telegraph on March 5, 2002.18 But these statements of the alternative version went virtually unnoticed in the American press, as shown by the fact that, a year after 9/11, CNN was still reporting, with no public contradiction from the FBI, that Barbara Olson had used a cell phone.19

Watch the video below…

Finally, there were reportedly two connected cell phone calls from American Flight 11, both made by flight attendant Madeline “Amy” Sweeney. The 9/11 Commission Report later stated:

“[Flight attendant] Amy Sweeney got through to the American flight Services Office in Boston but was cut off after she reported someone was hurt aboard the flight. Three minutes later, Sweeney was reconnected to the office and began relaying updates to the manager, Michael Woodward. . . . The phone call between Sweeney and Woodward lasted about 12 minutes.”20

An affidavit from the FBI agent who interviewed Woodward that same day stated that, according to Woodward, Sweeney had been “using a cellular telephone.”21

It is likely that, except for the Olson case and one or two others, the newspapers got the information for their stories primarily from the FBI, which gave the impression of supporting the people’s claims that they had received calls from cell phones. This was the case, as we have just seen, with regard to the reported calls from Amy Sweeney. With regard to Deena Burnett, the FBI report said:

“Starting at approximately 6:39 a.m. (PST), Burnett received a series of three to five cellular phone calls from her husband. . . . Approximately ten minutes later Deena Burnett received another call from her husband. . . . Approximately five minutes later she received another cell phone call from her husband.”22

With regard to Lee Hanson, the FBI report said: “He believed his son was calling from his cellular telephone.”23

It is clear, therefore, that the FBI was not publicly raising objections to – and even appeared to be endorsing – the notion that there were several cell phone calls from the 9/11 flights, even though these flights were reportedly at quite high altitudes when the calls were received. In the report presented to the Moussaoui trial by the FBI in 2006, however, this apparent endorsement would disappear – probably because of limitations on what cell phones could do.

Cell Phone Limitations

Given the cell phone technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few seconds, were virtually – and perhaps completely – impossible. And yet many of the reported cell phone calls occurred when the planes were above 25,000 or even 40,000 feet24 and also lasted a minute or more – with Amy Sweeney’s reported call even lasting for 12 minutes.25

Three problems have been pointed out: (1) The cell phone in those days had to complete a “handshake” with a cellsite on the ground, which took several seconds, so a cell phone in a high-speed plane would have had trouble staying connected to a cellsite long enough to complete a call. (2) The signals were sent out horizontally, from cellsite to cellsite, not vertically. Although there was some leakage upward, the system was not designed to activate cell phones at high altitudes.26 (3) Receiving a signal was made even more difficult by the insulation provided by the large mass of an airliner.

Well-known Canadian scientist and mathematician A. K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a column for Scientific American, reported early in 2003 on experiments showing that these difficulties would have rendered impossible at least most of the reported cell phone calls from the 911 airliners.27 His experiments involved both single- and double-engine airplanes.

Dewdney found that, in a single-engine plane, successful calls could be counted on only under 2,000 feet. Above that altitude, they became increasingly unlikely. At 20,000 feet,

“the chance of a typical cellphone call making it to ground and engaging a cellsite there is less than one in a hundred…. [T]he probability that two callers will succeed is less than one in ten thousand.”

The likelihood of 13 successful calls, Dewdney added, would be “infinitesimal.”28 In later experiments using a twin-engine plane, which has greater mass and hence provides greater insulation from electronic signals, Dewdney found that the success rate decayed to 0 percent at 7,000 feet.29 A large airliner, having much greater mass, would provide far more insulation – a fact, Dewdney added, that “is very much in harmony with many anecdotal reports …that in large passenger jets, one loses contact during takeoff, frequently before the plane reaches 1000 feet altitude.”30 Dewdney concluded, therefore, that numerous successful cell phone calls from airliners flying above 30,000 feet would have been “flat out impossible.”31

The Tonka Report editor’s Note:Keep reading, folks! This is more explosive information exposing yet another of now countless facts unravelling the government fraud of 9/11… – SJH